We all have a different perception of the world. The perception of the world I have, may be something completely different from yours, even though we may be standing next to each other looking at the same thing. We all perceive this reality differently.
Let’s look at this example:
Visualise the colour blue. You know what blue colour looks like. I know what blue colour looks like. But, you may have a completely different perception of what blue means to you than what blue means to me. Even though we will both agree the colour we are talking about is blue.
And the same applies to people and how we perceive each other. The way other people perceive us and the conclusions they’ve come to about us, has nothing to do with us, but it’s merely their perception of us.
The perception topic recently came to my mind, when I thought about how easily people come to certain conclusions about each other, get triggered by each other, often without really getting to know someone. Of course, we are not going to resonate with everyone or get on with everyone, and to be honest, we shouldn’t even try. But, what’s interesting is how easily, we as humans, come to certain conclusions about others and it’s all based on our perception of them.
I have quite a few examples from my own life when people got triggered by me or simply misunderstood me, just because of the perception they had of me or the conclusions they came to about me, even without really getting to know me. We often see this on social media, where people put themselves in the public eye. Based on the way they present themselves, we come to certain conclusions about them, which may differ from who they truly are. It’s actually quite interesting once you become an observer of this phenomenon.
When it comes to perception, and especially when we find ourselves putting people into certain boxes or categories, it might be a good idea to perhaps ask ourselves: ‘What is it in me that is making me to judge? What is it in me that is making me point my finger at this person? What is it in me that may be causing this misunderstanding or misconception?’ And the answer to these questions could be, that our perception of them is a reflection of our own shadow, some disowned part of ourselves, that is being reflected back to us, like a reflection in the mirror. This perception may be showing us something we need to look at or to work on within ourselves.
But again, this is my perception and you have your own perception of this too.
I will leave you today with this wonderful quote by Aldous Huxley: